AIBU - expecting son to pay for his own 'luxury' groceries on top of rent

Exactly this!

I paid my mum £300 a month for rent / bills about 25 years ago. I did pay for my own petrol though. I would have been paying for my own mobile too (I first got one in uni so hadn't grown up with parents paying for my phone etc). If your DS had a petrol car, he would presumably be paying for that. I am sure his work expenses more than cover it. Obviously some of that is for depreciation of the car / servicing etc. but it should also cover charging.

Wow, he’s your son, not a lodger.

If I don’t need the money I’d ask him for rent, but then I’d save it in an account and I’d give it to him when he needed it for a deposit or wedding.

I think it’s excessive.

I agree. You sound tight.

500 is a lot
Yes of course it would cost more if he moved out,but he hasn’t , he is still living in his home !

Reading all your posts I think it’s fair. £500 all in but coffee pods and canned drinks sort out yourself.

My adult son pays £180 per month. He pays his own car and phone costs. He is an absolute saver and not a spender at all. If he smoked, drank or wasted money I would think I should increase it but as he doesn’t do any of those things I’m happy with the £180.

I would make children cover everything they spend etc
And then take an amount that can help them move out.
I have 4 brothers.
All of them were told to pay my mum a 100 a week.
2 did, and funnily those 2 left home early and got married and have kids.
The other 2 earned plenty, always complained it was too much, spent too much on nonsense and never paid the 100.
Lesson?
Make life a little hard for kids and they become independent fast
You have to be a little cruel to be kind.
Otherwise you'll have 40 year olds still at home, still complaining.

@SilkySquirrel Parents aren’t responsible for their adult children, are they? Are your parents responsible for you?

Of course most parents want to help and support their adult children, and the OP has done this twice by bailing him out when he wasn’t managing away from home, plus they’re planning to give him £10K towards a house deposit. They’re hardly leaving him to struggle with £1300 a month to spend.

£500 is not a lot at all! He's an adult with a job. Never again will he live so cheaply! I hope he's at least saving to move out because he has plenty left over after that.

Please tell me how he is struggling with £1300 spare cash?

Please tell me how he is struggling when he can A afford to smoke and B chooses to do it in OPs house ( not his house ) against the rules?

Please tell me how he is struggling with having the majority of his food bought and cooked by his parents?

I'm not relishing anything, I am seething that op has to put up with an ungrateful scrote of an ADULT son.

Its what they expect these days. When my daughter passed her test 20 years ago, she genuinely expected a brand new VW from us!!

A house share doesn't throw in most food, bills, and even a mobile contract.

I paid £30 a week in 1985! My Mum was not wealthy and valued my 'top up' to her income.

Tell him to rent a studio flat

I thought that until a few weeks ago when I watched my DS make himself a smoked salmon bagel and massive posh coffee in a glass nespresso cup for breakfast and thinking he’s never going to move out.

I've been on another thread recently where two 11-year-olds were abruptly sent home from a sleepover because they spilled some water, and posters were calling these girls all kinds of abusive names, because "they did not do as they were told".

And here we have an ADULT MAN, not paying his way and not doing his share in the house, smoking indoors against his parents wishes and intimidating them, and posters are saying it's all fine and 500 is too much.

How, how, are both these things possible???

Personally I think it’s pathetic for parents to renege on their responsibilities and treat their DC like tenants.

I could not imagine leaving my DC to struggle as you seem to relish.

If he’s not happy I’ll happily swap with him.
He can move into my house and I’ll come live with you OP.

If you saw my earlier post I make a distinction between the rent paid and the behaviour. He should be pulling his weight in the home with cooking/ cleaning etc irrespective of what rent is charged. I didn't charge my DC anything and they both saved and bought houses but they were absolutely expected to share the chores.

'Only' is your clue there.

Not unreasonable , if he thinks it’s to much he can pay rent elsewhere and all expenses .
If you all love coffee can I suggest you invest in a beans to cup machine , yes they are expensive but even if you drink 10 coffee a day you will only spend £30 on 2 good bags of bean coffee

He has attempted to live independently before but got into difficulty through what seems like pure fecklessness, and you have brought him back to his childhood home as a result.

Now he's there he has absolutely zero responsibilities of any kind. He barely contributes financially. You cannot even talk to him about difficult issues (like tidying, not smoking etc.).

@QuaintNewt, what is the purpose of this arrangement? You are, essentially, facilitating an unrealistic standard of living for him, preventing him from gaining important life skills, stopping him from facing (on his own!) the kind of challenges that are essential for people to face at this age and generally just cushioning him from reality.

Do you think this is in his best interests?

Do you think he will learn the skills that he needs living with you like this? It sounds like if anything he's regressing given he has the cheek to moan about his extremely modest contribution to your finances.

You need to assert yourself. If he wants to be a child and live in his childhood home then he needs to be treated like a child.

Start with the finances: work out what an equivalent bedroom in a nice houseshare would cost, plus council tax, plus utilities, then add his total food costs and sundries and cleaning at minimum 20 an hour x however many hours you spend doing housework.

He should have a modest sum for personal spending, say 150 per month. (Who the HELL has 1300 left for themselves every month??? It's NUTS.)

Also, do you even know how much he's saving, if any? Everything that he has left over should go to an account you have control over.

I don't really care how much rent would be if living with me wasn't an option. It would be more about actually covering the cost of bills and food.

@Teainthekitchen I'd do the same, it would be “board” not “rent” as I wouldn’t expect mine to contribute towards the mortgage. But our utilities increase significantly when DD (20) is home from uni so at 23, I think it’s reasonable for an adult to cover their share of the household income bills.

Does he pay his own car insurance @QuaintNewt? It def. makes sense for him to pay for his phone if he can get a cheap deal.

He can set up a Nespresso account and have them delivered to the house or buy Starbucks by Nespresso in supermarkets. Really nice esp when on offer.
There's the door if he can live cheaper or charge him less but he funds his own luxuries

£500 is a lot to charge your own son. Yabu to think of charging more on top. I'd be taking this and probably give some back to him when he buys a a house to help with a deposit. I think your seeing him as a lodger, he is your son. Yes teach him a lesson he needs to pay keep but not begrudge him using electric and some coffee pods. I think that's tight.